Tag: backpacks

At the outlets this week, I bought a new backpack. The battered black one I was using went into the trash. No big deal except that the tattered bag belonged to my late husband, Mike.

Mike got that backpack in 1996 before he got sick. At the same time, he got a briefcase for me. Both items were brand new, but Mike said he found them in the trash. Perhaps he was pulling my leg, but at the time, several couples near us were divorcing. You’d be surprised at what people throw away during a divorce.

That backpack served Mike well during our forays to the islands. It accompanied us on tours through Italy. After Parkinson’s Disease enforced its scorched earth policy with Mike, I used that backpack to go to my writers’ conferences. I toted the bag to Ocean City and everywhere else until this week.

Discarding the backpack felt like trashing a memory. How could I do this, I wondered? But funny thing, the new bag is black, too, and decorated with poppy, flowers. Mike once told me I reminded him of the poppy flower, so he called me Popple. So those memories will continue with the new bag.

When you get down to it, both items are plain backpacks, made of canvas or leather, and such items wear off after months, sometimes years of use. But the memories involved will live on forever.